Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

43

Calling All Nationalists

No, he did not return in the first days of the New Year as expected.

After returning to Calcutta from Midnapore, and before leaving for Gujarat, Sri Aurobindo delivered speeches at College Square on 14 December and at Beadon Square on the 15^th. At the latter the audience would not rest till it heard Aurobindo Babu. He gave in, saying "I have made it a rule not to speak in public and I have good reasons for it. I went to England when too young to learn my mother tongue and I can't speak it. And rather than address you, my countrymen, in a language which is not mine and which is not yours I kept 'self-silent'...." In both speeches he explained the position of Nationalists.

We rather doubt he had time to go to Deoghar before leaving for Surat on the 21^st. According to Purani, Mrinalini Devi was then living in N°29/3 Chhaku Khansama Lane, Calcutta. So in all likelihood Sri Aurobindo at least saw his wife and could bid her good-bye.

Every day counted; there were pulls from every side. He was organizing the Bengal delegates for the Surat Congress.

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This included all the practical details for their journey and stay too I

The experience of the Midnapore Conference had shown Arabindo Babu how the delegates, young or old, were smarting under the 'autocracy' of the old leaders. He was quick to seize on that chance and at once used it to give an organized shape and form to Nationalism. The Bande Mataram gave a call to all Nationalists to attend the Surat Congress in force. "We call upon Nationalists in Calcutta and the Mofussil [countryside], who are at all desirous of the spread of Nationalist principles and Nationalist practice all over India, to make ready at whatever inconvenience and, if they find it humanly possible, go to Surat to support the Nationalist cause. ... If Bengal goes there in force it will, we believe, set flowing such a tide of Nationalism as neither bureaucrats nor Bombay Loyalists are prepared to believe possible." That was a reference to the followers of Pherozeshah Mehta. "When Sir Pherozshah Mehta juggled the Congress into Surat, he thought he was preparing a death-blow for Nationalism : he was only preparing the way for a Nationalist awakening in Gujerat." Arabindo Babu urged the Nationalists "to fling ourselves at once on Gujerat and organise Nationalism there, so that the Loyalist's chosen haven of refuge might become another place of shipwreck."

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Arrangements made for the Nationalist delegates were published in the pages of the Bande Mataram. "The Christmas concessions given by the Railway companies reduce the expense to a minimum and for those who travel by the intermediate,¹ Rs.75 at the outside should be enough." A 'Delegates' Fund' was set up. "We may mention that all we propose to give out of the fund is assistance; no single delegate will be given all his expenses to and from or at Surat." The delegates were asked to take an uncompromising attitude towards any backsliding but support progress to help Congress move a step forward. The collection, it seems, amounted to Rs.360 or so. Sri Aurobindo made a fervent appeal. "We must go as poor men whose wealth is our love for our Motherland, as missionaries taking nothing with them but the barest expenses of the way, as pilgrims travelling to our Mother's temple. We have a great work to do and cannot afford to be negligent and half-hearted. Be sure that this year 1907 is a turning-point of our destinies, and do not imagine that the session of the Surat Congress will be as the sessions of other years. Let us fear to miss by absenting ourselves the chance of helping to put in one of the keystones of the house we are building for our^- Mother's dwelling in the future, the house of her salvation, the house of Swaraj."

On 21 December a whole contingent of Bengal Nationalists boarded the Bombay Mail from Howrah station. Among the leaders were Sri Aurobindo, Shyam Sundar, Suresh Chandra

1. Railways had four classes of bogies: first, second, intermediate, and third.

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Samajpati; among the young men were Barin, Satyen Bose, Abinash Bhattacharya. As a rule, Barin who was a member of the secret society, did not take part in any public affairs. But then on that very morning he had been handed a ticket for Surat and was told that he was to go there as a delegate of the Anti-Circular Society, which had been created two years earlier to oppose the repressive Carlyle Circular. At such a short notice he just managed to throw a few things in a canvas bag, and reach Howrah station in time. Such a crowd there was on the platform ! What jostling I Compartments crammed full to overflowing. The young men got into any compartment they could manage to squeeze themselves in. When the train halted at Kshara pur , Sejda sent a volunteer to fetch his young brother.Barin came to the leaders' compartment. That too was a third class carriage. The Nationalist Party was not a party of rich men ; nor were those Gandhian days when the 'third-class' carriage in which Mr. M. K. Gandhi travelled was often converted to one with the comforts of a first -class. As Sarojini Naidu commented wryly, "It costs the people of India a lot of money to maintain the poverty of the Mahatma."

In the event, this was a real third-class, and the Bengali Nationalist leaders were travelling in it. Barin says in his autobiography that he found the compartment almost like a bedlam! A deafening uproar was going on when he arrived ! Seeing the young man without any suitable clothing and shivering with cold ,Shyam Sundar wrapped his own warm overcoat round Barin.Then he gave a packet of food to the hungry young man who thought it was near enough to be termed 'nectar ' I After such

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a welcome it was natural enough for Barin to stay on in the same compartment. Now then, from one of the stations, a wonderful procedure began —at each station their carriage was flooded with garlands of flowers, luchis, sweetmeats and tea. The packed crowd, the cry of 'Bande Mataram' rending the air, and all trying to get a glimpse of 'the leader.' Oh, but so many had to go away disappointed! How could one imagine that such an eminent person would travel third-class? Had not Aurobindo Babu's name spread like wildfire all over India, almost overnight? An important person like him would surely be travelling by first or at least by second class? Why, there was the Congress Secretary of the Moderate Party, J. Ghosal, seated comfortably in a first-class compartment, in his European dress! And there was their idol, dressed simply in a dhoti and shirt, and in a third-class! By the time people realized their mistake the train was already leaving the platform. Many were luckier. Garlands for Sejda flooded the compartment! But whether the train stopped or not every wayside station was jampacked with admiring crowds cheering lustily. 'Bande Mataram' rang out from thousands of throats. And as many hands waved lights. Thus the 'Congress special' rushed from light to darkness and then to light again. What with all the din and overstuffed stomachs, most of the passengers passed sleepless nights. I can see in my mind's eye the spontaneous adoration of the masses for the young Leader. The word of his passage had gone forth and the more they got a glimpse of him the more they wanted to see him. Do you know how Sri Aurobindo was travelling? No bedding, no pillow. He slept on the hard board. His arm was his pillow.

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The train reached Nagpur the next day. The station was a sea of heads. Like claps of thunder from stormy clouds, cheers burst forth from the waiting throng for the Herald of the New Awakening, mingling with cries of 'Bande Mataram.' At every place students formed the better part of the crowd. Nagpur was no exception. What a reception they accorded to their adored one I Sri Aurobindo broke his journey for a few hours, as he had been asked to give a speech in this town. Unharnessing the horses from the carriage they themselves pulled it. We may note here with amusement that as the students repeated this action everywhere, a jittery Government watched with nervousness. During the Alipore trial the next year the Prosecution Counsel, Y. Norton stated that "Aurobindo was treated with the reverence of a king wherever he had gone. As a matter of fact he was regarded as the leader not merely of Bengal but of the whole country."

From the station Dr. Munje and others escorted Sri Aurobindo and Shyam Sundar to the Raghubir Theatre. There Sri. Aurobindo delivered an address to the packed house. And whom did he see there ? Sir Moropant Joshi, one of those who had taken the oath of the revolutionary society 'Lotus and Dagger' in England, but now become a Moderate I "On my way to Surat Congress we had stopped at Nagpur. My lecture was fixed in the theatre. On the front bench," Sri Aurobindo's eyes lit with reminiscent amusement as he spoke, "was sitting Moropant Joshi. Deshmukh was by his side. Joshi was all along gaping at me."

At 6 in the evening the train chugged away from Nagpur. Then it stopped at Amraoti, the home town of Khaparde. Here

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too a big reception party led by him waited with garlands in hand and cries of 'Bande Mataram' on its lips. Here again Sri Aurobindo made a speech.

On the 23^rd the train reached Bombay. This was the terminus. Everyone got down. Another train would take the party to Surat. On Bombay's beach, lapped by the Arabian sea, a meeting was arranged to be addressed by Sri Aurobindo. "We could hardly walk to the place through the living streams converging by the streets and lanes towards the chosen spot, automatically stopping all vehicular traffic for a time," Barin was to recall years later. Let us remind the reader that in the first decade of the century the crowds were spontaneous ones, unlike today's contrived crowds brought by truckloads.

The speaker too was quite unlike any you have ever seen. He did not gesticulate, he did not harangue, he was not given to histrionics. No. He always spoke in his calm, clear and measured tones, and in a lucid style. As soon as the assembled people saw Sri Aurobindo rise to speak, they accorded him a magnificent ovation. Again at the end of the speech. But when he spoke, people listened to him in pin-drop silence so as not to miss a single word. For this shy, frail young man was the Harbinger of the creed of Nationalism. His inspiring speech produced a deep and lasting impression. A single example should suffice, so here is a report from Amraoti: "The manner in which he treated of love and devotion was exceedingly touching and the audience sat before him like dumb statues, not knowing where they were or whether they were listening to a prophet revealing to them the higher mysteries of life...."

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But I imagine that it was not only his words that cast a spell over the people. Once Satprem and I —Sunil the musician joined us —were invited to a musical recital given by Sri Aurobindo. There were others also. But we had just sat down when Sri Aurobindo began his song. He had a tanpura in hand. His melodious voice propelled our inmost beings to a region of grandeur of beauty and strength. A light. A vastness. Our home.

Dream, would you say?

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A few Nationalist leaders at Surat:

(centre:) Ajit Singh, Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Haider Reza

(front:) Khaparde, Ashwini Kumar Dutt

(back:) Dr. Munje, Ramaswamy, Kuverji Desai

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